


my heart points me to you

by April (featherx)



Series: but in the end I will always come back to you [4]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 14:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10538538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherx/pseuds/April
Summary: Junmyeon's new customer is a bit more interesting than he thought she'd be. (Flower shop AU)





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt taken from jxnmyns.tumblr.com/post/140590495162/ - "have you ever met someone who’s smile looks like it could make flowers grow"

Junmyeon is quite content watering his azaleas when the chimes above the door tinkle pleasantly. He almost doesn’t realize it’s not one of his friends coming in, and an actual customer with a very objective eye. He nearly drops his watering can, which would have been a tragedy if he had crushed his precious azaleas. “Good morning.”

“G’morning,” the girl greets blandly, only casting him a glance before looking back down at his daisies. Junmyeon is quite proud of those daisies, actually, and he’s just about to point out that those flowers she happens to be looking at are _very_ high-quality when the girl’s eyes slide to a different display. Junmyeon hopes he doesn’t droop too obviously. “Excuse me,” the girl speaks up, “but my friend’s got a show today. What do you suggest giving her after?”

“Well—”

“Please not roses, by the way, I think she hates those, and I’m a bit broke for those right now,” she interrupts quickly, looking a little frazzled. Junmyeon vaguely notices how her hair barely looks combed and how there are dark circles under her eyes. “Um… Just some flowers that are nice but cheap, if any.”

Junmyeon hadn’t _really_ been about to suggest roses, but that had been one of his second choices. He mulls it over for a moment, looking around the quaint little flower shop and trying to mentally organize all the flowers he can remember tending to. The daisies she’d been looking at really are nice, he swears, but they’re perhaps a bit expensive because of that. So maybe the petunias could work, but he’s only too aware that some people view them as a symbol of anger and vengeance, which might not be entirely suitable for his customer’s situation. So…

“Or, what are these?” The girl asks curiously, peering at a display of white-and-yellow flowers. “Oh, daffodils,” she says slowly, reading off the little tag below them. “One dollar for a stem? How much for a bouquet?”

“Twenty,” Junmyeon replies uneasily. He can feel the girl’s wince more than see it, and in all honesty, he can’t blame her. “Do you want them? I can fix it for you right now.”

The girl sighs, and brings out her wallet. “There’s… no additional cost for that or anything, right?” She asks, voice dripping with paranoia.

Junmyeon tries not to smile. He does anyway, and he’s almost surprised when the girl smiles back. It’s a cute smile, he thinks. Pretty, even with the eye bags and messy hair. If anything, it’s probably a part of her charm or something. “No, thankfully, or we wouldn’t get any customers at all.” He gets up to take the daffodils out of their display, checking them over meticulously _just_ in case they’d gotten mistreated somehow without him having noticed. The very notion sounds absurd, but he can’t be too safe with his little babies.

“This place is pretty quiet, isn’t it?” The girl offers, although she seems a lot more focused on her thinning wallet as she withdraws a few crumpled bills from inside. A visible gloom descends on her demeanor as soon as Junmyeon cashes the money in and hands over a receipt.

“Just a bit. Anyway, the flowers are company enough.” The daffodils are in, of course, perfect condition. Junmyeon sighs in relief – if one petal had been out of place, he’d beat himself up, and then his boss would beat him up.

“Hmm,” the girl says listlessly. She seems obviously bored, just waiting for him to fix up the bouquet, so Junmyeon gets to work as quickly as possible. But then the girl says, “Flowers have meanings, right? What do daffodils mean?”

Junmyeon barely thinks about it. “Mostly love. Though, I’ve heard they can also symbolize rejection, but that one’s not used too widely, because people can always send each other dead leaves if they want to convey something sad.”

The girl half-laughs, half-snorts. It makes for a very amusing sound that Junmyeon can’t help but laugh at as well, and the girl flushes an unflattering shade of red, which only makes the whole situation weirder, in Junmyeon’s humble opinion. “Sorry, do people really do that?” She asks incredulously.

“I mean… my friend does,” Junmyeon says. He decides not to add on, _but mostly because Baekhyun’s an ass and just wants to piss the rest of us off._ “I don’t think it happens often, unless you _really_ hate this person and want to get them annoyed.”

The girl looks thoughtful. “You know, I think that fits me pretty well.”

“I’m sorry I don’t sell dead leaves, but they’re pretty easy to find around autumn time,” Junmyeon offers gently. The girl laughs again, and Junmyeon finds himself ducking his head to avoid making eye contact, because – because, had he just found that laugh cute? Not that it had been a _bad_ laugh, by any means, but this is a stranger he barely knows – although, he supposes this is sort of the most he’s spoken with a stranger…

Before he can really think about anything else, the girl’s wandering towards another aisle of flowers, poking and prodding at them curiously. Junmyeon has to resist the urge to call her out, because she’s not disarranging them, and he honestly just thinks the urge is coming from his, as Sehun calls them, Protective Dad Instincts. Sometimes Protective Flower Dad Instincts. At least no one’s made a gay joke yet, surprisingly enough.

“What about these? The orchids. What do they mean?” The girl asks, carefully sniffing the bunch of colorful flowers. Her nose scrunches up a bit, and Junmyeon has to hastily silence the little voice going _wow, that’s cute_ in his head.

Junmyeon takes out a string of ribbon and a pair of scissors. This bouquet isn’t going to make itself. “Good things, mostly. Love, beauty, refinement… I’ve heard they’re Chinese symbols for children, too, or something.”

“Oh.” She looks a little curious, still looking down at the orchids, before she says, “They’re all colorful.” Then she moves on to the next display, barely glancing back at Junmyeon.

For some reason, Junmyeon wants to yell, “Hello, I am here and we are talking to each other, please face me!” Of course, he doesn’t, but he’s sure he’d be incredibly satisfied with himself if he actually did. Or maybe just embarrassed. Either seems to work.

Then the girl asks, voice a little softer, “Roses have… all kinds of meanings, don’t they?” She picks one from random from the huge array of roses the shop has on display, then asks, “How are dark pink ones?”

“Thankfulness, I think.” Junmyeon eyes the daffodils a little closer. Is it just him, or are they a little off-color?

“Mm… ooh. Lavender?”

“Enchantment.” Or perhaps that’s just the lighting. Junmyeon squints up at the cheap light bulbs, wondering if he’ll have to ask his boss to change the perpetually flickering lights, or if he might have to do it himself. Knowing his boss, it’s most likely the latter that would happen.

The girl goes quiet for a second. Then, “Thorn-less roses?”

Junmyeon looks away from the ceiling, and nearly jumps when he sees that the girl’s eyes are fixed on his, now, a warm, curious blue that seems to be asking him a different question. What the question actually is, he certainly doesn’t know, but he wouldn’t mind answering it at all, he thinks. “Thorn-less roses,” he muses, but his attention is much more focused on the girl still keeping eye contact with him. Junmyeon lets a small smile slip. “Love at first sight.”

“Oh,” the girl says again, quietly. She looks down at the flowers, cautiously taking a single one out of its display and lifting it up to the light. For a second, Junmyeon thinks that he doesn’t really mind having those never-working light bulbs up after all. “I like the idea of them being thorn-less,” she says, after a short while. “But I mean, I think they should be able to defend themselves, too, right?”

“It makes them a little less dangerous to whoever you’ll be giving them to,” Junmyeon says, perhaps a bit literally. The girl laughs again, and Junmyeon _swears_ to God, he might actually stab himself with a thorn if he doesn’t stop thinking _cute, cute, cute_.

“Aw, you’re missing the point.” She sets the rose back in its display carefully, trying not to mess up the original arrangement too much. Junmyeon doesn’t really want to know how bad it is, but he’s going to trust this stranger he doesn’t even know the name of and assume it hasn’t been too ruined. “Beautiful things should be dangerous, too. Don’t you think beautiful and safe don’t really go well together? It’s almost too perfect, and what a waste everyone else would be.”

Junmyeon looks up again. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to finish this freaking bouquet with this girl talking on and on, but he also has a feeling he doesn’t really mind her company. “Are we still talking about flowers, here?”

“I don’t know about you, but I know I wasn’t,” the girl says. “I’m Maxine, by the way. Call me Max. And are you done with the bouquet?”


End file.
